Five Seconds
by TB's LMC
Summary: Knowing everything's going to be okay all comes down to five seconds. Spoilers: Season 1 Finale "Oia'i'o" - this is an immediate post-ep because like many other fans of H50, I simply couldn't just let that finale end where it did.
1. Steve

**Title**: Five Seconds

**Rating:** T for language

**Summary:** Knowing everything's going to be okay all comes down to five seconds.

**Spoilers:** Season 1 Finale "Oia'i'o" - this is an immediate post-ep because like many other fans of _H50_, I simply couldn't just let that finale end where it did.

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><p><em><strong>Five Seconds<strong>_

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><p>It's not very often your world completely falls apart. That the glass house once resembling all that was your life shatters into millions of shards, nicking every inch of you. It's fucked up when it happens. But it's even more fucked up when it happens twice. Mother...murdered. Father...murdered.<p>

What was even worse, and more unbelievable than it happening twice, was it happening a _third_ time. He leaned forward, elbows just behind his knees as he sat on the standard prison cot. Hands ran through his hair over and over. The sweat dried it sticking out at all angles. Palm-flat, touching his forehead to stave off what was sure to become a migraine very, very soon.

Down over his eyes. Eyes that felt like they were full of sand, sand from the beach behind his father's house..._his_ house...no, it was his father's house. His father, shot dead while Steve listened helplessly from too far away to be able to do anything more than feel his gut twist and his heart seize in disbelief.

Over his nose, landing on his mouth. His mouth. "Danny," he had said almost desperately when his partner had shown up at the scene. Danny could fix anything, and Chin...Chin had made the move back to HPD for a reason, Steve knew it as sure as he knew his own name.

"There _is_ no more Five-O!"

Chin's words sliced through Steve's brain like a knife, or maybe it was the migraine finally hitting after all.

"It was Wo Fat."

Steve had given Danny the nugget he needed. With Chin's help, he would get the evidence needed to clear Steve and get him out of there, and with any luck, deliver Wo Fat to the HPD in a body bag. Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a _bitch_! His thoughts punctuated every punch to the cement block wall, the final leaving him feeling like he had to have broken every finger and knuckle.

But what the fuck, why was Kono in the precinct, why was she getting booked? Steve didn't know anything anymore, he didn't understand, and then suddenly his brain, which had started to feel like an over-boiled egg, put the puzzle pieces together. This wasn't just about taking Steve down, after all, not _everything_ was about Steve McGarrett even though really, it was.

This was about dismantling Five-O for good. Getting rid of Steve had been the goal all along, he knew that now, knew he should've seen this coming. But he'd been so blinded by his own quest for vengeance, by his desperate need to catch his father's killer, and to solve the murder of his mother. Too fucking wrapped up in the thing he should have known better than to get wrapped up in.

Because really, how many times had he seen a blood quest wind up with the one seeking justice being the one who got fucked up the ass? It was the classic tragedy, and if he hadn't been so blinded by the blood-boiling need to take an eye for an eye, he would've seen it. Some fucking SEAL he was. But none of that had ever been personal. They'd all just been missions. Orders. Doing what he was told, what he'd been trained for, what he was damn good at.

But the part of him that was, contrary to anyone else's opinion, more human than even _he_ cared to admit, had allowed his emotions to steal every ounce of common sense, put aside every bit of training he'd ever received, cloud every goddamn instinct he'd been born with. And now where had it gotten him? Sure, he'd gotten his revenge, but in dragging three other people along for the ride, what had he done to _their_ lives? The look on Kono's face had said it all. He had never seen her defeated or frightened even in the face of the fiercest enemy. But she was now both.

He paced the tiny cell, dragging his fingers through his hair, running the painfully swollen hand down his face over and over. Alternately shoving his hands into his pockets before pulling them out and fighting to keep from punching the wall yet again. Danny, well, Danny was Danny and he'd get him out of this mess somehow, he knew he would. He wouldn't think about Danny any further than that because Danny was still on the outside.

The governor...his face twisted in fury and he _did_ swing around and punch the wall again, this time feeling it when the bones crunched but it made him feel _alive._ He welcomed the pain into his body even as it felt like an ice pick had gone through his frontal lobe.

The goddamn _governor_ of the State of Hawaii had put the ten mil back. To protect him, yeah, right, that's what she'd said, but...his eyes widened as he stopped in mid-step. One socked foot dropped like lead next to the other. That was it. The serial numbers of the money Chin told him had been found half-burned on that ranch, they were traced back to the 8-year old case, and that's what had Kono in the slam now, it _had_ to be.

But the governor herself had made sure the money had been replaced. Surely there'd be a way to connect the dots, to lead from the non-missing money that according to those serial numbers _should_ be missing, back to the governor, back to Wo Fat. Dammit, he needed to talk to Danny, _dammit_! He shook his hand which had turned from a welcomed intruder into downright throbbingly painful to match what was bouncing around inside his skull right now. He didn't even realize he'd squeezed his eyes shut against the way-too-bright fluorescent bulb in the light of the goddamn tiny cell he'd been thrown into.

Okay, so Danny was still out, Chin, he was back with HPD. Stick to the facts. He could still think, albeit barely, as he sank down onto the cot and stretched out full-length. The uninjured hand covered his eyes, trying desperately to block out the damn light. Chin had seen this coming and he'd gone where he could do the most good for his former teammates, his former boss. But that didn't make any sense because why would the HPD so warmly welcome Chin back, but not even just welcome him back..._let_ _him lead the charge to the governor's residence_?

In spite of the fact that his head felt like tiny piranhas had been let loose inside it, he shot to his feet, swaying just a bit as his eyes popped wide open. That was it, that was it, it _had_ to be. HPD offers Chin his badge back _just_ on the cusp of Five-O being ripped apart, _right_ before the governor is murdered in cold blood by Wo Fat, _immediately_ prior to the framing of McGarrett himself for that murder and putting Kono out of commission.

The thought came to him clear as day. Someone was still trying to help them. Someone, someone, but _who_? Steve ran a hand down his face for the millionth time and then the migraine took final hold of him and he staggered to the cot and fell into it face-first. He had to think this through, because when he got his phone call...they still got a phone call last time he knew...it was going to be to Danny and he'd give Danny enough to fix it.

Okay, okay, so what did he have? Kono and him, locked up. Admittedly, Steve facing _much_ worse on the spectrum of charges, but still and all...he felt a twinge near his shoulder and his hand clapped to his neck. Taser. Wo Fat had tasered him..._look at the evidence the way HPD will_...why would he have had the mark he knew had to be there, he couldn't possibly have shot the governor after being hit with an M26. Even freaking ninjas, and his mouth quirked hearing Mary's voice in his head calling him that, couldn't overcome a hit from a Taser well enough to murder someone.

Right, the Taser would be another fact to impart to Danny. But back to someone on the inside, and he felt a strangled growl in his throat as the blood rushed through his ears so loudly he actually clamped his hands over them trying to make it stop. Chin at HPD. Danny still free and clear. It didn't make sense in the real world, because they'd been a team, a task force, they'd been Five-O. And truly, what one of them had done would get them all locked up for nothing less than being accessories.

At the very least, Danny could've been booked as an accessory to the theft of the ten mil, because after all, he'd been right there with Chin...Steve cringed as he remembered the look of fear on Chin-Ho's face with that bomb strapped to his fucking neck. _God, _what, they'd expected his boss and his cousin to just let him _die_? No, no, no, back to facts, back to facts. Steve's whispered groan against the full-force migraine's power to incapacitate him felt like it'd been a guttural yell as he rolled to his side with both hands now covering his eyes.

_No, back to Danny_...they could easily have booked him, taken him down along with Kono. It didn't take much to play the blame game when four people were involved. And that led back to Chin-Ho, because how the hell would HPD not only have welcomed Chin back with open arms, but made him a _Lieutenant_ and sent him to Jameson's house to coincidentally find Steve just rising to his feet with a gun in his hand and Jameson's dead body in her chair?

Migraines made thinking downright impossible for most, but for Steve it seemed to make it all completely circuitous. And so he was back to the idea that someone was on the inside, someone was trying to make the best out of this hellhole of a situation and someone was still on their side after all. Who, who, _who_? Steve moaned again, he could barely string a coherent thought together, but he heard the click of the lock and forced his eyelids open. Just a slit, but enough to see that two cops were entering his cell.

"Up, McGarrett," the thinner of the two said.

Steve drew on every reserve he had, teeth clenching, eyes squeezing shut as he forced himself to his feet.

"You get one phone call," the other cop told him as he shackled his ankles.

The thinner one cuffed his wrists behind him and out they went. Steve was glad for the shackles because he could shuffle along without thinking about having to walk, and right now through the axe splitting his head in quarters, walking was more work almost than it was worth. But the phone call...Danny, he'd get him now, he'd tell him everything he'd figured out. Primary goal. He would accomplish it.

He was led to a wall phone. One cop took up residence either side of him after removing the handcuffs, then cuffing his left wrist to the bar next to the phone.

"Five minutes," the thin cop said, and Steve's vision was so blurred he couldn't make out the name on the gold-plated tag.

He couldn't even make out the push buttons on the phone, but he lifted his fingertips to touch them and he knew which numbers to press. He cradled the phone in his neck and dialled. It rang once. He let out a puff of air, sagging against the wall as tears leaked out of his eyes. Fuck, getting shot didn't hurt this much. It rang twice and he fought the surge of panic that threatened. What if Danny didn't answer, what if...what if they'd gotten to him too?

What if he'd been arrested, maybe they were just waiting until the big boss was behind bars and then it'd all be over for Danny and Chin, too? Worse yet, and he felt the pain become almost unbearable because it wasn't just from the migraine this time, but worse yet, what if they-

"Williams."

"Danny," in the same ragged and desperate voice from before.

"Steve? Listen, what the _hell_, and no I will not shut up on this one, what in the _hell_ were you doing at the goddamn _governor's_ home, I mean, did I or did I not, and I very _clearly_ remember that I did, tell you to go get some sleep, that we'd look at the evidence in the morning, like, what the _fuck_ were you-?"

"Listen to me, Danny, you just shut up and you listen to me, there's someone helping us, you gotta listen to me, Danny."

"All right, all right, calm down, whaddya mean someone helping us, 'cause I don't mind telling you, Babe, Chin-Ho shoving you in the back of the cruiser for murdering the governor does _not_ seem helpful at all-"

"Danny," and this time he knew he sounded more than desperate, but at least it shut his rambling Jersey partner up long enough for a two-minute recap of what he'd figured out in between wishing he could just sink into the floor and spontaneously combust for all the relief his goddamn head was giving him.

"Okay, okay," Danny said a full twenty seconds after Steve had finished. "Okay, this I can work with, I'll get with Chin, all right? I'm gonna get you outta there, McGarrett, you hear me?"

"Yeah," Steve ground out. He grasped the phone so tightly he thought it might just crumble and he'd lose that thing he needed right now more than even Excedrin...his lifeline, his grounding...Danny. "Yeah."

"Hey, you don't sound so good, what..." Steve heard the sigh and could imagine Danny's hand rubbing his forehead. "You didn't go all Super SEAL on them, _tell_ me you didn't fuck up your own chances of getting the hell out of there once we clear your name by being a fucking lunatic. _Please_ tell me you stopped and thought about your partner before you did something completely stupid again, just _tell_ me you haven't maimed a cop."

"No." _Keep talking, Danny, keep talking, I need a rant right now, I need to know you're there._

Steve would have laughed out loud if he hadn't felt like the ass end of a downed sub, because Danny always came through.

"Good, because let me tell you something, partner, and yes, I'm still your partner, I don't give a shit if there's no Five-O, they haven't stripped me of my badge, so you're still my partner, you hear me?"

Steve winced when he nodded. Danny couldn't see him, but Danny would _know_.

"So let me tell you something, you keep your mouth _shut_, Steven, you keep your goddamn arms and legs to yourself, you don't say a _word_, because I got your back."

"Always," was all Steve could say through clenched teeth, and he hated that even over the pounding of his head and the rushing blood in his ears he could hear it came out more like a sob.

"That's right, always, and I'm here, I'm staying right _here_ until I wrap this up with a big fucking red bow and set it on the Lieutenant Governor's desk with a big, bright flashing neon fucking Hallmark card that says, 'Love, Steve and Danno,' you got that, you hear me, right?"

"Yeah, Babe," Steve's voice was vibrating his entire body as his vision blurred to the point where the phone was nothing more than a shadowy blob of something.

"Thirty seconds," the thin cop said, looking at his watch.

"Danny."

There was a full ten seconds of silence on the other end before Danny's voice, low and gravelly, and not at all like the tirade voice, said, "I know."

Steve tightened his grip on the receiver like it was his best, last and only hope and wanted to say so much more, so much, but it couldn't happen through the fog that had descended over his brain, or here in a fucking precinct hallway and his head was _killing_ him but none of that mattered now because Danny knew everything and he'd fix it.

He could hear Danny's breathing at the other end of the line as the cuff around his left wrist tugged mercilessly, not letting him slide down the wall and allow the pain to envelop him. Ragged, heated breaths that reassured him, let him know it was okay because Danny had his back, like always.

And in those last five seconds of silence before the bigger cop wrenched the receiver from his tight, tight grip, Steve McGarrett heard every word Danny Williams said.


	2. Danny

Danny watched the face of his cell phone as it flipped back to its desktop state. He glanced at the car radio display and noted the time. Tires squealed as he jerked the Camaro to the right and slammed on the brakes. A cloud of dust rose behind him, the car jerked into Park on the shoulder of the road. He leaned forward and rested his head on the steering wheel.

Everything had fallen apart. Squeezing his eyes closed, he imagined Rachel and Grace waiting for him at the airport gate. Grace, so young but so smart, probably not fully understanding what was happening but knowing enough to wonder where her Danno was. He was sure Rachel had told her enough that she'd been expecting him to show up, sweep her into his arms, and board that red eye with them.

He shook his head, forcing himself to take deep breaths. Rachel was pregnant, with _his_ child. More than anything, Danny had always been about family; whether it was the Williams clan at large, or about Rachel and then about Rachel and Grace. Whether it was about uprooting himself and moving 4,895 miles from the only home he'd ever known when Rachel had remarried and won the right in court to take Grace with her to Hawaii, or whether it was the fact that ever since he'd been gassed with sarin, he and his married ex-wife had been having an affair...the fact of the matter was that Danny had always, _always_ been about family.

But somewhere in between complaining about pineapple and ham pizzas and how the tropical and beautiful State of Hawaii couldn't hold a candle to the wonders of New Jersey, something had happened that had flipped every concept of family he'd ever held dear onto its head. Somehow he'd been adopted into a family of another sort...an ohana, they called it. And, Danny realized, raising his eyes to look out over the city before him, the feelings he had for the new family warred with those he had for the more 'normal' family he loved so deeply.

Hands gripped the steering wheel. They gripped it until his knuckles were sore and then he hauled back and punched the center of the wheel, punched it for what was happening with Rachel, punched it for knowing Grace wasn't even on the goddamned island anymore, punched it for having left Jersey, harder and harder. McGarrett had put together a ragtag bunch of people who couldn't be any more different from each other if they'd been specifically cast that way by some higher Power That Be.

But somehow over the course of the last year, they'd each wormed their way into Danny's heart and he hated them for it. How could he choose, how the fuck could he choose between his Rachel, his Grace and his unborn child, and Kono, Chin-Ho and...Danny's breath hitched. Steve.

"_That's right, always, and I'm here, I'm staying right here..."_

He couldn't shut out the way Steve had said his name. He'd never heard his name said that way, not by Rachel, not by his daughter, not by _anyone_. He was Steve's only hope. Steve was counting on him. Steve had told him everything he needed to blow this whole thing wide open, to save his ass. But Rachel...

Danny looked at the clock radio display again, refusing to admit that the sensation in his eyes was anything close to being tears. It would be hours until he'd have to try and talk to Rachel, try to explain why he hadn't shown up at the airport. He'd say hi to his monkey, tell her Danno loved her, all the while thinking of her baby brother or sister he'd only just found out about a few hours before.

Rachel and Stan were over. Rachel was having his child. Danny knew he had to stick to facts here, had to haul himself up from the same sort of pity fest he'd let himself wallow in back when he'd first learned Rachel was taking Grace to Hawaii. He had to wait to deal with Rachel. He'd figure it out. Danny always figured it out somehow.

"Snap out of it, Williams!" he whispered fiercely, putting the car into gear and pealing away from the shoulder.

The facts. Right. The facts were Five-O was fucked. The governor's dead. _"It was Wo Fat." _So what had Steve seen, what had really happened here? Tasered by Wo Fat, who shot Jameson dead and left it all for Steve to take the rap. Steve's fingerprints all over Hills' apartment. Step by step Wo Fat had weaved an intricate web to stop Steve McGarrett once and for all.

Danny half-snorted as he looked at his own eyes in the rearview mirror. Wo Fat may have been an international arms dealer with ties to Yakuza and every other godforsaken shit group out there, but he'd never run head-on into a Jersey detective like Danny Williams. When next he glanced up at the mirror his blue eyes blazed. Wo Fat wasn't going to get away with this.

Someone's helping them, Steve had been adamant about that. But who the hell would have enough power, enough pull, to keep Danny from being grabbed by HPD for any number of charges, trumped-up or not? To get Chin-Ho reinstated as a lieutenant? How had Chin not been absconded with by Internal Affairs the same time Kono was? He'd only just left them when IA arrived, they could've grabbed him on his way out of the building.

Somehow, somehow it all came back to Chin and the HPD, but Danny was damned if he could figure out how. When his cell phone rang, he looked and saw the name on the screen. Jesus Christ, he'd completely forgotten about the newest fifth member of their team.

"Jenna," he said after hitting the Answer button, "talk to me."

"Is it true?" she asked and he could hear the near-tears. "It's all over the news, the governor's dead?"

"And they arrested Steve, yeah," Danny replied, nodding. "You still up for this, kiddo, because we have a fuck of a lot of work to do."

"Yeah, yes, of course!" Jenna replied. "Kono called, I was just about to swing by PD and pick her up."

"Pick her up?" Danny repeated.

"She's been placed on Administrative Leave but she's not being arrested yet. Just investigated." There was a moment of silence before she continued. "Danny, they kicked us out of Five-O HQ. They've shut it down completely. I was escorted out of the building."

Danny felt his hopes rise just a bit. If he had Jenna and Kono with him, he'd work three times faster. He'd be able to get Steve out of this three times faster. But with Five-O being gone, with no base of operations, they'd have to improvise. They couldn't go to Steve's; Danny was sure it'd be crawling with cops tearing it apart. And his apartment was just no place to cram even one person, let alone three.

"All right, what equipment do we still have?"

"Kono and Chin pretty much killed our Operating System," Jenna replied, "but I've got a few laptops and I can back-hack into whatever I need to."

"Boy, am I glad you're on our side," Danny said half-jokingly.

She gave a mirthless chuckle. "Where do you want to meet?"

The palm of his left hand rested on his forehead for a moment as he kicked the car back into drive with his right. Where the hell was he even driving to, he wondered as that hand moved to his eyes. His thumb and forefinger pinched into them before stroking down over his nose and landing on his mouth. The last words spoken between him and his partner rang in his ears.

"_Danny."_

"_I know."_

"All right, listen, Kaye, you pick Kono up and get whatever you two need to get together. I've got to stop by my place and then I'll call you and tell you where to meet me, okay?"

"You bet," Jenna said, and ended the call.

He was startled when his cell phone rang again and the display name read Chin-Ho Kelly.

The momentary burst of anger he'd felt watching Chin stuff Steve into the back of the cruiser faded in light of Steve's insistence that Chin had done the right thing, that he needed to trust Chin. Danny touched the Answer button.

There were several seconds of silence before Chin spoke. "We need to talk, brah."

"Where are you?"

"Steve's place."

"What the hell are you doing at Steve's place?"

"That's why I need to talk to you."

"All right, I'm there in ten minutes."

The call was ended and Danny took a sudden right turn, headed for the beach. He shook his head and looked at himself again in the rearview mirror. What if Steve was wrong? What if Chin wasn't on the level, wasn't trying to help? After all, as Steve had so rightly said, Chin got reinstated to HPD awfully goddamn quick, and then to be the one who arrested Steve? Either it was all good or it was all really, _really_ goddamn bad and Danny knew he was about to find out which.

But ten minutes was a long, long time to think. And his thoughts inevitably turned back to Rachel. And that always led to Grace. How could he do this again? How could he be almost five thousand miles away from the joy of his life again? She'd been the only reason he'd even come to this goddamn state in the middle of the wrong goddamn ocean. He'd gotten her for 6 hours on Christmas, a grand total, he remembered telling Rachel over the intercom, of two thousand, five hundred hours a year. A year consisted of 8,766 hours. That meant he got to spend only 29% of his year with his beloved daughter.

Danny punched the steering wheel again. When it had just been him, left alone back in Jersey, it had seemed like a no-brainer to follow Grace to Hawaii. But this time, going back the other way, things were a lot more complicated. He let out a puff of air. A _lot_ more.

Grace came first. She always had. She always would, Danny told himself fiercely. And yet when push came to shove, what had happened? Where had he been when his beautiful, smart, perfect little girl had been at the airport with the woman he professed to love, who was pregnant with a _second_ child of theirs? What had happened? Danny knew damn well what had happened. He'd been racing to the governor's residence to find Steve being hauled away for murder, that's where he'd been.

For all his passion, which frequently spilled over into ranting tirades that he was fully conscious of delivering but wholly incapable of stopping, Danny Williams was really a calm, calculating and thinking man. There were rules. There were rules for everything, and he generally followed those rules pretty closely. At least, he had before becoming part of Five-O.

Goddamn Steve McGarrett and his reckless disregard for rules. All right, so he was no cop, hadn't been trained as a cop, hadn't learned the rules of the street or the shield like Danny had. Seemed to have a blatant disregard for his own well-being and, by default, the well-being of those under him. Which, all things considered, was a contradiction in and of itself when you knew, as Danny did, that Steve would do anything and everything in his power to keep all of them safe from harm.

How did he do it, Danny wondered, scratching a hand along the stubble on his chin. How could someone be so polar opposite of themselves?

"_You are the backup."_

Danny shook his head as those rushed words wafted through his mind. He knew McGarrett was a smart, smart man. He'd have to be to survive all those secret missions he'd had to survive, to know how to do all the things that freaked Danny out on a daily...no, make that hourly...all right, on a minute-by-minute basis. He'd picked Chin because Chin-Ho Kelly had his father's trust. Regardless of what he'd find out from Chin himself in a few minutes, that made Chin good enough for Danny to trust as far as he was concerned.

Steve had chosen Kono based largely on Chin's recommendation, of course, but it turned out she had more loyalty in her small toe than many of the cops Danny had personally known back in Jersey. Not to mention her smarts with the finer technologies of their trade and hot damn, but whenever she had to wear a bikini was A-OK in Danny's boat. He'd have to be dead not to appreciate _that_ skin.

Jenna had been a bonus who'd really been proving herself. Even now, after what had happened, she was still there turning to Danny and having earned Kono's trust. And then there was Danny himself. Steve had chosen him even after their first meeting at gunpoint, even after their (embarrassingly public) fight (but oh, that had been a good punch he'd blindsided Steve with). Why? How could he make such immediate decisions about a complete stranger, and a haole, no less, who just _happened_ to show up at his dad's...his...his _Dad's_ house for an investigation?

Danny wasn't far from Steve's now. It twisted in his gut a little, this knowing that Steve wouldn't be there when he arrived. But the feeling passed quickly as his previous question came back to him and really started to gnaw at him. It was true, there was no way Steve could have even known of his existence before that garage meeting.

This time Danny _did_ stop driving. He was within sight of McGarrett's house, but he couldn't focus enough on the road to even want to keep going. Had McGarrett _known_ about him..._before_ they met? Was it...was that really _possible_? He'd never actually said he didn't know Danny, or at least, know _of_ Danny prior to that day.

But what if he _had _? What if Steve knew, as soon as Danny said his name, that he was the man he wanted to be his partner? But if that was so, why? Why choose a recent transplant to the big island...? Danny leaned forward and rested his forehead on the top of the steering wheel.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered, throwing himself back until his headrest stopped him. "Son of a...you gotta be _kidding_ me!" The heel of his hand struck the steering wheel as a broad grin spread across his face. "Oh, shit, McGarrett, do you have some questions to answer."

Thing was, even if this far-fetched theory of his was right, even if for some reason Steve already _had_ chosen Danny as second-in-command, maybe even if the only reason was _because_ he'd known Danny had no ties to Hawaii other than his daughter, Danny just couldn't be mad at him for it. For not telling him about it? Yeah. Hell, yeah, he'd given him several pieces of his mind on that one alone.

But the fact was, he thought as he pulled off the shoulder and finished the drive to Steve's place, it was already the best partnership in the history of copdom, as far as Danny was concerned. Sure, Steve gave him regular heart attacks, or at least, symptoms of heart attacks, every time he did some hare-brained not-very-well-thought-out thing that usually involved the kinds of gunfire, hand-to-hand combat and massive explosions only seen in the movies, but...

The grin stayed plastered to Danny's face. His mind once again travelled back to that first meeting in the garage. Sure, it had started out with the guns, and then the count of three thing which would've been hilarious in a TV show but was more than just a little silly for a couple grown men. Although, Danny thought, 'silly' had never stopped them before. But after Danny had shouted his name out, hadn't the look in Steve's eyes changed just a little?

Danny didn't think it had been his imagination, now that he looked back on it. He pulled up to the McGarrett house to find only Chin's bike parked out front. He levered the Camaro into Park and killed the engine.

"_I am Detective Danny Williams."_

Well, in his defence, Steve had had a gun pointed at _him_, too. And he had no clue McGarrett was even in the state, let alone in the house. But what had seemed to begin so randomly, now appeared to have started before Danny had even heard of Steve. Something that Steve was certain enough of to cement by commandeering Danny into Five-O, meaning he _had_ to have known something about Danny before they met.

Because really, Danny thought as he got out of the car and let the door swing quietly closed behind him...if the decision to make Danny his partner had occurred in only the five seconds when they were on the verge of shooting each other, Steve McGarrett really _was_ insane.


	3. Chin

He wasn't sure whether Danny's first course of action would be to haul off and give him a solid right hook, or start barking at him about what the hell was going on. Either way, what he knew was going to blow things wide open, and between him and Danny Williams, would be the beginning of getting to the final truth of the entire mess.

And what a mess it was.

He heard the Camaro's engine die and looked around Steve's living room. Watched Danny get out of the car, the door slamming shut seeming to echo between his ears. Danny approached with his usual swaggering walk, like nothing at all was wrong with this particular visit to McGarrett's. Details. Chin _always_ noticed details, even the most minute ones.

It had been both a blessing and a curse. Just seeing a look in someone's eyes and correctly interpreting it had gained him the trust of many Hawaiians on his beat in the early days. Knowing from the twitch of a suspect's finger when to keep his mouth shut, when to run or when to squeeze the trigger had been second nature to him as long as he could remember.

The one thing he'd not done right, that his acute awareness of all the little things most people ignored hadn't picked up on well enough to make a different decision, was Malia. He had chosen not to think about the fact that she still wore her engagement ring around her neck. What did it mean? Why the hell was he thinking about that now?

Saved from his quickly spiralling thoughts by the approach of his teammate, Chin tensed as Danny slowed and then stopped in front of him. Their eyes met and in the five seconds he held Danny's gaze, he knew without question that Danny trusted him. Oh, there'd been doubts, plenty of them that had been niggling at the back of Chin's brain since Danny had busted his balls when he'd put a handcuffed Steve in the cruiser.

"I was protecting him," Chin said before his brain had time to analyze the words.

"I know," Danny said. "Now why are you here?"

Chin nodded curtly and stepped back, sweeping his arm to the side. Danny walked past him and looked around the living room, stopping dead as his eyes took it all in. If Chin wasn't mistaken, Danny was shocked speechless...much the same as he'd been when he had first arrived after handing Steve off to Booking...only for Danny, that was nothing short of practically impossible.

There wasn't a stick of furniture. It was completely and totally empty. Danny turned a questioning gaze his way. Chin shrugged. "I have no idea, brah."

"Chin, you said you needed to talk to me about why you were here," Danny said, pinching the bridge of his nose and shifting from left foot to right foot impatiently.

"I came here to see if any evidence had been planted," Chin explained, then gestured to the empty room. "But it's just the opposite. Everything is gone."

"The whole house?" Danny questioned, moving through the doorway into what was a cross between a dining room and a den. He stopped and looked around at the empty room.

"Every room," Chin confirmed. "Every closet, every cupboard. Even his clothes are gone...the lanai furniture, dishes, the fridge is empty."

"What the hell?" Danny said, turning a three-sixty.

"I don't know, to be honest, but I'll tell you what I _do_ know," Chin said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms over his chest. He waited until Danny's eyes were on his. "Duke brought me back to HPD for a reason, but it wasn't _his_ reason."

Danny suddenly looked interested. "Whose was it?"

"Mahaka."

"The Chief of Police?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow. "Damn. But is he trying to help us or...?" Danny finished by splaying his hands in front of him.

"I'm not sure what his motivation is," Chin explained, shaking his head. "Duke said Mahaka was adamant about getting me back onto the force and quick, but when I declined, when I said I wanted to stay with Five-O, Duke didn't push me."

"Wait, you _declined_?"

Chin nodded. "It wasn't until I finally realized what was going down with Five-O that I understood there was a reason for it. That's why I cut out on you guys."

"I don't mind telling you it would've been nice if you'd explained it back then."

"I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know if I was doing the right thing."

Danny was silent for a few moments. "So we need to find out if Mahaka's on Steve's side or if he's Wo Fat's puppet."

Chin nodded, grateful that Danny and he were on the same wavelength. His gaze roamed over Danny's haggard face, noted that aside from the gleaming curiosity in his eyes, there was an air of sadness surrounding him. "What's going on?"

"Aside from the gigantic clusterfuck that is my life?"

"It's not just all this," Chin said, internal radar bleeping all over the place. "Not just about Five-O."

"When did you get to be so perceptive?" Danny asked, but his tone wasn't defensive.

"Come on, brah, we've got to hit the ground running at a hundred and ten percent if we're going to clear Steve and Kono any time soon."

"Yeah," Danny nodded, running a hand down his face. "I'm on it. I promised McGarrett."

"But?"

Danny levelled his eyes at him. "Drop it."

Chin raised his hands in mock self-defence and pushed himself up off the wall. As his eyes travelled around the empty room, the questions that had hit him hard as soon as he'd stepped foot in Steve's home came barrelling back towards him full-force.

Why would someone have emptied every single solitary thing out of here? Chin wandered from room to room, and slowly began to walk up the steps as his mind churned and churned. So they got Steve arrested for the governor's murder, great, so what would possess that same party, or even a completely different one, to take every stick of furniture, every scrap of clothing, every bit of food? Why leave the house so bare it looked like Steve had never even exi-?

Chin drew up short, his jaw dropping slightly. He'd made it to McGarrett's bedroom and slowly allowed his eyes to travel over the walls, though he wasn't really seeing them. He tended to turn inward when presented with a conundrum, and had been known to stare blankly ahead of him for hours until he figured whatever problem it was, out.

If Steve got lost in the system, he could easily rot in jail. Hawaii hadn't had the death penalty since its beginning as a state. If Steve was sentenced to life for Jameson's murder, his affairs could still be handled easily by someone on the outside, by Danny maybe or even by Chin himself. So why empty the house as though Steve had never even been there?

Ransacking looking for something damning, or even to plant evidence against Steve would've been par for the course, something Chin could've easily wrapped his head around. But this made no sense at all. Yet his original thought kept coming back to him. It was almost as though someone wanted to make it like Steve McGarrett had never existed.

Wo Fat? No, that made no sense. Wo Fat had been about revenge, partly, and also about putting Steve out of commission before he learned the truth of Jameson's liaison with Fat. He'd have no logical reason to want to erase Steve from existing. And truthfully, nobody could do that, not completely. Not only because Steve's birth and social security number were registered, not only because there were still people who cared about him alive...but also because Steve had been a SEAL. He'd been _military_, for Chrissakes. You couldn't just blink a Navy SEAL out of existence.

"Shit," Chin breathed. You couldn't blink a Navy SEAL out of existence unless you were the Navy. Or even higher, some government entity. Chief of Naval Operations? The President of the United States? "_Kanapapiki__!_"

"Kana what?"

Chin whirled on Danny as he entered the room. "Hawaiian swearing."

"Learn something new every day," Danny mumbled. "What's with the face?"

"Danny, I think someone's trying to erase Steve."

"Erase him?" Danny cocked his head like a confused puppy. "Erase him how?"

"Think about it," Chin said, nodding to himself as his thought process clicked the pieces into place. "If you had all the power of the world's superpower country in the palm of your hand, and you wanted to protect someone from a guy like Wo Fat who seems to operate above, around and in spite of the Law, what would you do?"

Chin watched Danny's face. He could almost see the wheels of his mind turning. Less than a minute later, he was rewarded with the proverbial light bulb going off over Danny's head. "You'd make Steve disappear so Wo Fat could never find him."

"Make him disappear," Chin repeated, nodding.

"But the house is still here," Danny said, sounding like he was gearing up for a game of Devil's Advocate. "If nothing else, it's a tangible reminder of Steve on this island."

"True," Chin said. "Maybe they just haven't had time to get rid of it yet."

"How the hell do you get rid of a house?" Danny asked, simultaneously shrugging and raising his palms to the sky.

Chin looked around the empty bedroom again and mirrored the shrug. "Fire?"

"Makes sense. You ought to post a guard on here twenty four, seven, until we get this handled."

Chin nodded, cell phone already in hand. He moved out of the bedroom as he dialled Duke's number. "Yeah, Duke, listen, I need a small team out here at McGarrett's."

He was surprised when Duke readily agreed without even asking why. But he was even more startled when Duke added, "I'll send the bomb squad," before ending the call.

"The bomb squad?" Chin repeated, looking at his phone like it was about to grow eight legs and crawl away as it flipped back to its desktop state.

"Bomb squad?" Danny asked, joining him in the hall. "What are you talking about, bomb squad?"

"I don't know," Chin said, shaking his head, eyes still focused on the now-black cell phone screen. "I asked Duke to send a team and he said he'd send the bomb squad."

"All right," Danny said, rubbing his hands together as he paced in small circles and lines up and down the hall. "All right, Chin, how much has Duke actually directly told you about what's going on? About Mahaka, for example?"

"Nothing directly," Chin admitted. "Everything he's said has been vague, or hinted at. Or he just lets me talk until I hit something and then he nods. Stuff like that."

"So he says things that aren't on the nose."

"Right," Chin confirmed.

"All right, then, why would he say he was sending the bomb squad when all you asked for was a team to guard the house from any attempt to burn it to the ground?"

Chin felt the fist of fear close around his chest. Danny stopped pacing and turned slowly to face him. Their eyes once again met, this time holding for mere seconds.

A split second later, both men were leaping down the steps three-at-a-time. Chin was out the door first. He kept running past his bike, past the Camaro, before skidding to a halt and turning to face the house. Danny's face twisted and Chin suddenly remembered his knee. Danny was moving slower than he had in a long time. Without stopping to weigh the pros and cons of his decision, Chin bolted back past the Camaro and his bike. He reached out to grab Danny's arm, intent on actually dragging him if he had to.

_We'll make it_, he repeated in his mind like a mantra. _We'll make it, we'll make it._

Chin-Ho heard the sound, but was unconscious before he identify what it was.


	4. Kono

She was still in shock. Glancing into the rearview mirror for the hundredth time, still in complete and utter disbelief of what her own eyes told her. She shot a look across to the driver's seat where Jenna sat with hands trembling, staring agape at what her eyes were telling her was true, but Kono could tell not believing it any more than she.

In a flash, both women were out of the car. Kono felt her feet hitting the ground, her mind racing in way too many directions at once. By the time Jenna had picked Kono up from PD, by the time they'd made their way to their individual apartments to gather some clothes and as much technology as they could lay their hands on, Danny still had not called Jenna back. And numerous calls to Chin's cell had gone unanswered.

Kono knew this could only mean something was terribly, terribly wrong. Her eyes were riveted to the devastation before her. What had once been a beautiful, regal estate home nestled against the natural beauty of Hawaii, now resembled only a shell of a house. It reminded her of the pictures in her high school textbooks, of how European cities had looked after being bombed by the Nazis.

Fire blazed, and there were pieces of walls and windows and doors and floors scattered everywhere she could see. Sirens wailed in the distance. Soon the official help would be here. But Kono cared only about the two missing members of her ohana, and the anguish she felt at not knowing whether they were alive or dead ripped from her lungs, clapping itself to her voice as she cried out into the night.

"_Chin_!" Tears welled up in her eyes. She angrily brushed them away. "_Danny_!"

She was vaguely aware of Jenna darting to and fro among the larger piles of debris, lifting edges of dry wall or dropping down on her hands and knees to peer underneath. The Camaro had been crushed by the triangular roof that had crowned the front door. One of the pillars had skewered Chin's bike. So Kono's worst fears were confirmed – they'd been there. She bit her lip, letting the pain remind her she had a job to do, even now. Everything depended on it. Including Steve McGarrett's life.

Old growth trees were stripped of their leaves, in some cases split right in half. And it was beneath half of a felled tree, in amongst the leaves and branches, that she thought she saw something move. She gasped and ran for the tree, ignoring the branches as they tore at her bare arms. She fought her way through them, breaking some off to get them out of her way, frantically parting the green and brown mass until she found light blue fabric.

"Danny!" she cried, tears of relief streaming down her face as he groaned in response. "Jenna, help me!"

Jenna was already there, trying with all her might to lift the fallen tree. "We have to hurry," she said. "Those sirens can't be more than five, ten minutes out."

"Yeah," Kono grunted, getting her shoulder under a particularly large branch and straining upward with everything she had. Jenna joined her and soon they had it a couple feet off the ground. "Hurry, Danny, _move_!"

She had trouble seeing what Danny was doing, but could hear him scrambling against the branches that still covered a good portion of his chest and face. Kono stole a glance back at Jenna's car, then turned her attention back to the rescue. Danny was scrabbling backward on his hands and knees, brushing against her leg. It was only then she realized he was moving so slowly because he was pulling something.

"Danny?"

"It's Chin," came the pained response. "It's okay, he's alive."

Now the tears really started flowing, and it was all Kono could do not to just drop the tree from its precarious perch on her shoulder. She could see in Jenna's eyes the strain was getting to her as well. They held each other's gaze until Danny puffed, "'Kay!"

She and Jenna dropped the tree. Kono knew there'd be a bruise tomorrow, but for now she ignored it. "Danny, we've got to get out of here before PD and the fire department arrive."

Both surprised and pleased that Danny didn't even ask why, she watched as he hiked Chin into a fireman's carry and moved to follow her and Jenna to the car. Doors were opened, Chin was half-dumped, half-placed in an upright position on the back seat. Only then did Danny tweak to the fact that the backseat wasn't empty.

"Who's that?" he asked, suspicion making itself known even through the hoarseness of his voice.

Kono eyed him, one leg in the car. "Just get in, We'll explain as soon as we're safe."

Danny nodded and dropped into the passenger side backseat as Kono and Jenna jumped into the front. Jenna gunned the engine and hit Reverse so fast they all jerked forward at the movement. She made it out onto the road, backed up a little further and straightened the wheel.

"Go, go, go, go," Kono urged quietly, one hand on the dashboard and the other looking behind them to where the lights of the first cop car were just becoming visible.

Jenna hit the gas and the tires squealed. Kono stayed on the edge of her seat, alternately looking ahead of them and behind them. She saw two cars peal into Steve's driveway but they hadn't seemed to notice them at all. Relaxing just a fraction, she turned to look at Danny sitting behind her, then at the person in the middle, and then at Chin's unconscious form behind Jenna.

"Is he okay?" she asked, nodding toward Chin.

"Pulse was steady at McGarrett's," Danny said. "I think he's all right." He turned to look at the woman next to him in the backseat for the first time. She had long, black hair but he could only see the tip of her nose beyond it. In the darkness, with barely a street lamp to pass under, he couldn't make out the features of her face. "Who _are_ you?" he asked.

"Danny, please, we have to get somewhere secure first," Jenna said, never taking her eyes from the road.

He looked toward her. "Oh, yeah, and where would that be? Preferably somewhere without any bombs, I hope?"

"Definitely," Jenna replied tersely.

Kono turned so she was facing forward. She was itching to check Chin's pulse and breathing for herself, but right now they had to get as far away as possible from the McGarrett house...or what was left of it...and as fast as possible.

She bit her lip again, feeling it had started to swell from her earlier bite. Her eyes shifted sideways to Jenna. As soon as she'd approached Jenna's car, seen the stranger in the back seat...seen the stranger's _face_...she'd suddenly understood a lot more than she had when IA had taken her in.

Allowing herself the moment to remember, she felt the disbelief wash over her anew. Barely graduated from the Academy, barely out of diapers in cop-speak, she had already seen more action than most lifetime badges saw. She was part of the most elite task force in the State of Hawaii, commissioned by the governor herself. She'd gone undercover and discharged her weapon more than most of the old-timers she knew.

And then to have it all abruptly stop, just like that, had left her half-insane with guilt and regret and wondering not for the first time if the last year of her life had been nothing more than a sick, twisted dream. Maybe IA had been a wake-up call of some sort. The only thing was, Kono didn't _want_ to wake up. She _loved_ her life. She loved spending so much time with her cousin. She had come to love both Steve and Danny, and lived for the moments when the two men made arguments sound like a comedy routine.

Together. Ohana. All four of them, at first, and then with former CIA agent Jenna, all five. Jenna, someone she'd started thinking of as a friend until the hurried explanations outside HPD had been made and Kono had really, really started to wonder about her. Kono stole a glance at Jenna again, then pivoted to look at Danny. She had to stifle a grin, because Danny, in his typical Danny-Williams-Way, was surreptitiously trying to figure out who the woman sitting next to him was.

Kono shook her head. _She_ still didn't quite believe what was happening. But, as the fast right turn Jenna suddenly made reminded her, now was not the time. She fought to keep herself upright and felt Danny's hand come around from behind her, grab her bicep and hold her in place. She turned and flashed him a grateful smile. He let go, but patted her arm before retracting his hand.

With what she now knew, Kono was fully aware that at some point in the craziness her life had become, everything would work out okay. It was going to take an awful lot of work and and awful lot of pomaika'i, but once they successfully sprang Steve, all the pieces would fall into place.

Well, most of them. At this point Kono herself didn't know everything there was to know, only the bits and pieces she'd gotten from Jenna and the woman in the backseat in between her and Jenna's rapid-fire conversation about where to go, what to do and what would happen if they couldn't find Danny and Chin.

She turned to look over her left shoulder at her cousin and let herself smile when his head rolled left, then right, and then his eyelids began to flutter. "You with me, Cuz?" she said in as lighthearted a tone as she could manage.

Chin's response was to groan, to which Danny added, "Hey, brother, you're not in bed, that's your cousin's voice you're hearing."

Kono shot him a look but was more than grateful for his attempt to inject humor into the situation as only Danny could. She turned her attention back to Chin. "Come on, Cuz, join me up here in the land of the living."

Chin's eyes blinked open and after a handful of seconds focused on her. When he smiled, her heart caught in her throat. She swallowed hard over the sudden tightness and reached a hand out. He took it and squeezed it, and then he smiled. She returned the gesture. "You okay?"

He cleared his throat and leaned his head back against the seat. "'Oma'ima'i ," he replied.

"Huh?" Danny said.

"Not feeling well," Kono translated, never taking her eyes from Chin. "I know, Cuz, I know. We'll get you comfortable in a sec, okay?"

Chin nodded, but his eyes remained closed. Kono stole a glance at the woman between her cousin and Steve's partner. When she nodded once, Kono nodded back, then righted herself in her seat. "Okay, Jenna," she said quietly.

"Okay?" Danny repeated. "Okay, what? Are you ever going to tell me what the _hell_ is going on?"

Jenna made a quick left onto a dirt road and went a mile before making a right down something that was no more than two ruts cut out of the surrounding flora. The car bumped and jumped all over the place. Kono noted the woman in the back laid steadying hands on her cousin's body to keep him from flying up and hitting the ceiling.

Kono herself was holding on for dear life to the seat belt, the dashboard and the door handle. Jenna's lights bounced everywhere and just when Kono thought she might throw up at the constant jostling, a dark house appeared in front of them. It was nestled into a semicircle of huge trees that hung over the roof, shielding the entire thing from aerial eyes.

She saw a dark figure appear from the side of the house and quickly pull the two-car garage door open. Jenna zoomed for it, hitting the brakes so hard the car barely missed slamming into the back wall. As the garage door was pulled closed, a light was flicked on. Kono shaded her eyes and jumped out of the car, sprinting around to the driver's side backseat.

Chin groaned as Kono helped him from the car. Danny was already out, as was Jenna. She heard the disbelief in Danny's voice when he said, "Duke?" Then, when her cousin's arm came around her shoulders, he continued, "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Kono nodded. "Come on, we need to get Chin inside and make sure he's all right."

"Well," Danny said a little hesitantly, voice laced with a great deal of confusion, "what about _her_?"

Kono saw him thumb into the darkness of the backseat. "Never mind, Duke will take care of it," she huffed. "Will you help me please?"

Danny was on Chin's other side in a split second, and together they got him into the house. Jenna came behind them, flicking on lights to reveal they'd walked into a well-stocked kitchen. The house appeared to be rather old, but well-maintained. The kitchen walls were a light peach color, and then the four moved into the dining room, which was done in shades of sea foam green, complete with bamboo table and chairs.

From there they went through another doorway and found themselves in a wide living room that covered the entire front of the house, but only gave them a view of trees since the front of the house was actually opposite the driveway they'd entered from.

The stairs were to the left. Kono nodded toward them, and Jenna ran ahead of the trio, taking the steps two at a time. Lights were flicked on ahead of them, for which Kono was grateful as she sagged under her half of Chin's nearly dead-weight. They maneuvered him into a bedroom, Jenna had opened the door. They got him down on the bed and Danny helped by taking Chin's shoes off and brushing some lingering wood splinters and leaf bits from his maroon shirt.

Kono tried to steady her breathing enough that she could get an accurate take of Chin's pulse. She laid a hand on his chest and allowed the contact to relax her as quiet moments with him always did. His chest rose and fell steadily. Suddenly Jenna thrust a flashlight into her hand. She smiled gratefully up at the woman, then opened Chin's left eyelid and flashed the light into it. She breathed a sigh of relief when the pupil reacted violently, becoming so small it was barely a pinpoint.

She moved to the other eye, using her thumb and forefinger to pull the eyelid open and shine the light in it. Again, the pupil reacted. Kono smiled, closing her eyes for a moment as she switched the flashlight off. Her cousin's deep voice, laced with mirth even now, startled her.

"Next time just ask me if I'm okay, Cuz."

Kono laughed out loud before turning to where Danny stood at the end of the bed shuffling his feet uncomfortably. "How about you?" she asked. "You all right after almost getting killed by a bomb?"

"Yeah, all things considered, but let me tell you something now, Kono, now we know Chin's okay...I want some answers, I want some answers _now_. Who the hell did you bring with you to McGarrett's house? How did you even know to find us there? Who the hell planted a goddamn _bomb_ in the first place and what the hell is _Duke_ doing here?"

Kono rose to her feet as the man in question entered the bedroom. "He okay?" Duke asked, nodding toward the bed.

"Yeah, he's okay," Kono replied softly. Duke took another step into the room and the woman with the long, black hair stepped in behind him. "I think," Kono said, her eyes flicking to Danny, "that you're about to get the answer to your first question, at least."

"What?" Danny asked, then looked toward the woman.

Kono watched him intently as the woman lifted a hand to her short black bangs, grabbed hold of them, and pulled a wig off her head. Wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair stuck to the wig, so the woman shook her head, settling it back into place.

Danny's eyes popped, jaw dropping to the carpeted floor. Kono felt the next five seconds as though they'd been suspended in cosmic time, like they were both the longest and shortest of her life. Danny's mouth worked but no sound came out. He looked for almost an entire minute at the blonde woman, before glancing at Jenna, and then Kono. "It can't be," he breathed, though his voice was barely more than a whisper.

"It is," Kono said with a small smile, looking from Danny back to the woman. "Trust me, it is."

Danny took a step closer, then ran a hand through his hair, bits of twigs and leaves dropping to the floor and his shirt. "But I thought..." His voice trailed off. He looked up at Duke, then back to the blue eyes in front of him. "They said you were..."

She smiled, and in the voice he'd come to know pretty well, said, "I know, Detective Williams. But as you can see, I'm very much alive."

Kono smiled, wishing Steve had been here to see this moment of Danny Williams being completely speechless.

Chin's hand startled her when it came to rest on her shoulder. "I don't believe it," he said. "Governor Jameson."

* * *

><p><em>Note: pomaika'i means "good fortune" or "good luck"<em>


	5. Jenna

It really wasn't all that complicated, once you got down to it.

Jenna watched the governor carefully. After all, the woman was her responsibility now…although she knew the three members of Five-O standing in the room with her, as well as Duke, would take on just as much of the responsibility once she told them why she had _really_ sought them out.

But right now her primary concern was the governor who, while not actually having been shot thanks to the Kevlar vest lined with fake blood, had definitely been bruised to the point where she'd gone unconscious. Good thing, too, because it'd convinced Wo Fat immediately that she was dead.

She was actually quite pleased with the operation, and was already receiving kudos from her CIA superiors all the way up to the Associate Deputy Director who'd assured her if she pulled this off, she'd really be going places.

However, in spite of the fact that so far, so good, Jenna wasn't really all that keen on heading back to the CIA. Not yet. She'd told Steve she'd taken a leave. Nothing could've been further from the truth as she worked alongside them and become sort of a quasi-member of Five-O. She genuinely liked these people, which was more than she could say for her peers at the Agency.

Then there was the fact that Wo Fat was at large. He thought the governor was dead. He thought Steve was going to be charged with her murder. He would think he had free reign of the islands, and that's when the CIA strike team...most likely with the help of Five-O...would get him.

That was the plan, anyway. It had been complex, and it had been given to her because her story was, after all, true...her fiancé _had_ been killed by Fat. So she passed every background check Steve and the team had run at her when she'd first come to them, and immediately the plan was put into action. Governor Jameson had been part of that plan all along. In fact, it'd been Jameson who'd concocted the whole thing after meeting with the Deputy Director of the CIA to begin with.

She needed Wo Fat "off her island," as she'd put it, and she knew the delicate line she'd been walking would end when Wo Fat decided she was no longer useful. Every word Jameson, Steve and Wo Fat had spoken, was recorded by Jenna's fellow agents. Duke had seen to it that the governor was taken only so far in the ambulance, and then handed over to a second ambulance handled by more agents.

Kono was free, and Jenna had given her as much info as possible in the short time they'd spent together after Jenna picked her up. She had been surprised by IA showing up for Kono, but knew there'd be no charges given the flimsiness of IA's case against her, and was more than happy to have her back long enough to give her the Cliff Notes version of the story.

And then there was Danny, someone who amused Jenna to the point where her eyebrow was going to get stuck to her hairline one of these days. But she knew as did the rest of Five-O that when it came to Danny, you couldn't have a fiercer protector or a more loyal partner or teammate. Danny's dogged pursuit of the truth, and his allegiance to Steve, would drive this case to its conclusion. She was sure of it.

And Chin, well, that one had been left up to chance based on the psych profile prepared before she arrived, and then tweaked based on her in-person observations. It'd been no big deal to ensure Mahaka understood giving Chin's badge back was not optional, and with Duke, who'd known Steve's father before his death, it was easy to get him on board and make him their inside man at HPD. Of course, the extra money with which he could spoil his grandkids rotten and help his youngest get through college, didn't hurt.

In the end, Chin had decided to do precisely what they'd predicted, once he'd realized Five-O was about to fall apart, that things were about to get dicey. He'd taken the badge back, and as per the CIA's direction on the matter, Mahaka had specifically put Chin and Duke at the forefront of the charge to Jameson's residence. Duke, while saying she was dead, knew she wasn't when he checked her pulse. Luckily Wo Fat, true to his MO, didn't shoot for the head.

Steve's arrest had been nothing more than a way to keep him safe. To keep him, as Danny so very often and very rightly observed, from going off half-cocked after Wo Fat. Lord knew McGarrett was probably going completely stir crazy, but...Jenna checked her watch...approximately three hours from now he would be released to the CIA's custody, and the CIA would bring him here, to their safehouse.

Right now, Jenna had the governor, who was currently explaining her part in the whole thing to Chin, Kono and Danny. Shortly she'd also have Steve, and the hard part was going to be getting Steve to reverse the "truths" he thought he'd found out in favor of trusting her and the governor. With any luck, the rest of Five-O would come along too, so long as they believed the tale she and Jameson were weaving.

The tale which, for a change of pace, was entirely true.

Yes, the McGarretts had been killed by Wo Fat. Yes, the governor had been walking a very, very fine line with Wo Fat but no, she hadn't ordered or asked for Hills to be murdered. Hills was working for Fat, feeding Steve bits and pieces from his father's toolbox every Wednesday under his orders. She'd been killed by his orders, too. Steve, for all his Navy SEAL training and the numerous missions he'd both participated in and lead, had the easiest buttons of all the team to push.

Of course, Danny melted over anything having to do with Grace, but as for Steve, all you had to do was bring up his mom, dad or Fat, and the Focus of Steel kicked in. He'd been a hard one to lead down the right path to get them to this point, but with the help of his voice of reason, also known as one Danny Williams, he'd gotten there. She felt bad for the private hell she was sure he was marinating in at PD, but soon it would be over.

At least, this part of the plan would be.

She heard Danny's raised voice asking what the fuck, what the hell, and why the hell and every other type of question he had. Chin knew a wee bit more than the others already thanks to his discussion with Duke when he'd returned for his HPD badge, and Kono seemed to be taking it all in, probably thinking this was something that never happened except in movies because she was so wet behind the ears.

Jenna watched Danny turn and meet her gaze as Jameson sat down on a nearby chair. Kono seemed concerned for the governor's well-being, which Jenna took as a good sign. Chin took up a protective position behind Jameson's chair. Body language told you so much, Jenna thought, when you knew how to read it properly.

Now all that was left was Danny. And from the look on his face, the way his hands were shoved into his pockets as fists visible beneath the fabric of his pants, and the glare he was fixing her with, she knew it'd take a bit more to convince him that she was not only on his side, but on Steve's as well.

There was also the matter of his ex-wife and daughter. But that could come after Steve was here safe and sound. Which, not altogether coincidentally, was going to be right around the time the red eye flight would land in Newark. When Wo Fat would learn he'd been duped.

She watched Danny approach her. Neither of them blinked. He invaded her personal space which, if she really cared about things like personal space, would've earned him at least an Indian Death Lock had he been anyone else. But she knew exactly what he was doing. He was studying her, trying to read her soul. Trying to determine for himself if the story he'd just heard from Jameson was true. If Steve really was going to be free in...Jenna checked her watch...two-and-a-half hours.

Silently she communicated the brutal honesty she felt, hoping he'd pick up on it. She was surprised when he spoke. "Just one thing I gotta know." She nodded. "Are you working for us? Or are you working for the CIA?"

"Both," Jenna replied, and could tell it wasn't what Danny wanted to hear.

"You can't split allegiances."

"My allegiance is to justice," Jenna countered. "Whether it's served through the CIA or Five-O or both, the fact of the matter is, Wo Fat is still my primary target, as well as Steve's."

She noted the slight twitch of his hand, which he'd removed from his pocket on his way over to her. Any mention of Steve right now was probably not the smartest move. "How can I convince you I'm on the level?"

"That? Oh, that time is past. You see, _that_ would've been telling us the truth back when we first met you. You being on the level is about as likely as McGarrett doing anything by the book from start to stop on any given case."

"Wo Fat had to believe the governor was dead, and that Steve was no longer a threat."

"All of which could have been accomplished by letting us in on the whole thing to begin with," Danny countered.

"That may be true," Jenna said. "But I was under strict orders _not_ to let any of you in."

"Really," Danny asked, rubbing a hand over his chin. "So how am I supposed to trust you when, for all I know, your next order could be to wipe us out for reasons of National Security or some other shit?"

Jenna swallowed once. "You're right," she finally said. "Depending on the whims of the Director everything could change in a heartbeat. But I've decided something, and maybe this will help me earn your trust."

"Okay, shoot."

"I've decided I'm leaving the CIA," Jenna admitted, and Danny's eyebrows shot up. Good. She had his attention. "Once we have Steve back, once we've got him on-board with this whole thing, I'm going to ask him if he'll take me as a permanent addition to Five-O."

"Permanent addition," Danny repeated in that low sort of mumble he sometimes did. "You know, Steve's going to blow a gasket when he finds out what's been going on under his nose all this time."

Jenna nodded. She knew Steve was going to be the toughest of all.

"But me, on the other hand, you pretty much must think I'm the easy one of the bunch."

She frowned. "What are you getting at?"

"What I'm getting at, Jenna," he said, leaning closer until they were almost nose-to-nose and spitting her name out like it was something distasteful, "is that I'm willing to go on a little faith since I'm seeing and hearing the governor with my own eyes and ears, but if you ever and I mean _ever_ fuck with Steve like this again, I will shoot you where you stand. Do you get me?"

She suppressed the smile she wanted to smile so badly. She'd expected nothing less of Detective Danny Williams and it only bolstered her resolve to stay with the team. "Danny, if I _do_ ever fuck with Steve like this again, you have my permission."

She saw the twinkle return to his eyes and knew she had him on her side one hundred percent. Jenna balked, though, because she also knew something else that might piss him off no end. He must have seen the look on her face change, for the twinkle was replaced by immediate suspicion.

"What?" he asked, catching and holding her eyes.

"There's something you need to know," Jenna said. "But I'd rather we speak somewhere private."

Danny nodded, turned and exited the bedroom. She stayed on his heels as he went down to the last room at the end of the hall on the right. They entered and he closed the door behind her. He surveyed the small bedroom, which contained only a twin bed, a high boy and a single picture on the wall. Then he turned to face her, folded his arms over his chest and waited.

"Danny, let me start by explaining to you that once this entire operation was set into motion, which was long before Steve came back to Hawaii, and even longer before you moved here, there was a ton of psychological profiling that the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI jointed with the CIA on. It became clear who and what Wo Fat was, and the fact that he wouldn't be able to resist thinking had the governor of the state in his back pocket was the first part of it all."

Gesturing for her to continue, Danny was making his face pretty unreadable.

"Then we cooked up the Five-O task force. Well, it was Jameson's idea, but it was the CIA who got the president to agree to Jameson doing what she did, although plausible deniability kept him from knowing more than absolutely necessary to make the decision. Once the task force was defined, the governor insisted on having Steve head it up, even though she knew it'd be a tough sell. But she also knew, as did we, that Steve would do it when it would give him carte blanche to go after his father's murderer."

"You exploited his weaknesses, in other words," Danny said bitterly.

Jenna half-nodded, half-shook her head, and half-shrugged in one fluid motion. "Yes and no. Five-O gave McGarrett what he wanted...what he _needed_...and in McGarrett, the governor had someone who would flush Fat out of hiding for sure, and then it was just a matter of getting the rest of the team together."

Danny's eyes widened. Jenna had no idea at first what was going on inside his mind, but some sort of recognition, or the solution to something, seemed evident in his face. "Steve knew about me before we met in his father's garage, didn't he?"

Jenna felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards. He'd figured it out. Somehow, in some way, Danny had already figured at least some of it out. Her smile grew and grew into an all-out grin until finally she nodded.

"He knew! When I identified myself, he already knew my name…he already picked me."

"Yeah," she said. "He did." Then she lowered her eyes, knowing she hadn't yet told him what she'd brought him here to tell him.

"What else?"

Jenna really, _really_ didn't want to. But she knew she had to. "It's about Rachel," she finally said as Danny's eyes seemed to go a shade darker.

"What about Rachel?" he growled.

"She's in danger, Danny. Everyone who means anything to you is, including Grace."

"_What_?" he bellowed, looking like he might just whip out his gun and shoot her on the spot.

"It's okay, it's okay," she soothed, hands raising to a defensive gesture.

"How—what—how is it _okay_ that my family's in _danger_?" he snarled.

Jenna heard the beep and felt the vibration of her cell phone. She stopped, took it out of her pocket, and read the text message. "Because we got to them in time, Danny."

He turned a three-sixty, raking his fingers through his hair. "Jenna, I am so sick of this shit," he said with barely concealed fury. "What the hell is going to happen to my wife and my daughter?"

She finished sending her text message and shoved the phone back into her pocket. "Danny, look at me," she said quietly.

He stopped his pacing and circling and let his hands fall to his sides.

"They're not landing in Newark. We got them off the plane just before it taxied away from the gate."

"You…" Jenna watched as his eyes cleared, his face flushed and then went pale. "You did what?"

"We found out Fat was going to abduct them right there at the airport," Jenna explained. "If they had stayed on that plane, your ex-wife and daughter could quite possibly have been dead within a few hours."

The door behind her flew open and in those first five seconds when he gaped at the two people standing there, the look on his face told Jenna so much she felt tears starting to fill her eyes. Danny and Rachel just gaped openly at one another in relief, confusion and surprise. And then a small girl ran forward and launched herself into her father's arms.

"Monkey!"

"Danno!"

"Rach," Danny said more quietly, enveloping both his girls in a bear hug. "My God," he breathed into their hair.

_Now_, Jenna thought, _all we have to do is get McGarrett here safe and sound, and we'll be ready for Part Two of the plan to stop Wo Fat once and for all._

She barely contained her tears when Danny turned to look at her. "I should hate you so much right now," he said, voice sounding like he was barely holding it together himself. "But I can't." He pulled his girls into him and squeezed them both tightly. "Thank you."


	6. Pat

_Damn, getting shot hurts. It even hurts when you aren't really shot. But what hurts more right now is knowing what Steve thought about me in those moments before Wo Fat shot me. Shot at me. Didn't actually shoot me._

Governor Pat Jameson sat up on the bed the moment she heard a vehicle pull up outside. She walked over to the window and looked down to the ground, where a black SUV was cutting its engine. In the meager light offered by the front porch bulb, she could see two suited men climbing out of the front seat. The one on the driver's side opened the backseat door, and within seconds a tall, lean figure was standing next to him. The agent closed the back door, then swung the driver's door shut.

The men exchanged some words. Steve nodded and then Pat heard the front screen door of the house open. The bedroom window she stood at, although with no screen, was open. She heard Kono and Chin greeting Steve and watched as Kono ran to him and enveloped him in a hug. The hug lasted a good twenty seconds and Pat frowned as Steve sagged just a bit after Kono let him go.

The next to approach was Chin-Ho. His right hand clasped Steve's left before they pulled each other into a back-clapping hug. Pat smiled to herself. These people really were an unbelievable team, partly by design but partly thanks to pure luck. Or maybe, she thought, luck had nothing to do with it at all. After all, by rights she should be lying on a slab in a freezer down at the morgue, with Max about to cut into her.

The thought made her shiver as whispered words floated up that she couldn't quite make out. Then the screen door slammed again, and fairly quickly she saw it was Danny this time. She couldn't suppress a grin when she watched Danny approach Steve with arms wide open as if to say, See, I told you I'd get you out of this. Steve seemed to melt into nothing more than a barely-standing mass of bone and flesh when Danny's arms came around him and Pat cocked her head at the sight.

Steve's arms enveloped his partner's body, and she thought how desperate the touch seemed as his fingers dug into Danny's back. There was definitely something special between these two that even with regular PD partners you didn't always see. Not for the first time, Pat was more than appreciative of who Five-O was and what they all meant to each other.

Duke approached next, waiting until Danny and Steve finally let go of each other to shake Steve's hand. Steve seemed a bit confused by Duke being there, and more quiet conversation ensued. Now, Pat thought, Steve seemed even _more_ confused, and that's when Jenna joined them. Pat's breath hitched in her throat. It was time for Steve to be told, and she could only hope and pray with every fiber of her being that Steve wouldn't want to go ahead and finish what Wo Fat had failed to do.

Pat retreated from the window as she heard Jenna's voice begin to waft up. She returned to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. Absentmindedly she rubbed the part of her chest that had been bruised by the bullets meant to take her life. She knew Steve pretty well, she thought, and all she could think was that he was going to be royally pissed off at the way he, and by extension the rest of the team, had been used.

It had been partially her idea, yes. But the other part of the Master Plan had come from the Director of the CIA and let's face it, governor of a state or no, you pretty much did whatever you were asked to do when the CIA was involved. But truthfully, she hadn't had to be coerced at all, because she really _had_ wanted Wo Fat off her island, and she'd been willing to put herself in the line of fire to do it. What did she care if she _did_ die, so long as Fat was taken down with her?

She hoped Steve would understand that even though Five-O had been the means to more than one end for both her and the CIA, that even though Jenna had been a plant, that even though Steve had had to endure lockup for a time, he had also gained something from it he never could've gotten on his own. No Navy SEAL could just start running around a group of islands shooting things up, blowing things up and hanging people off rooftops...oh, yes, she'd heard about that one...without getting put away themselves. That's why her offer had been full means _and_ immunity. Because she'd already known enough about Steve back then, partially from the CIA's psych profile and partially from some discrete inquiries with the Navy, that he was nothing short of a ticking time bomb...especially in the face of having to listen to his father's murder.

And in order to be able to do things his way, Steve had needed what Pat offered. Period. Justice for his father and mother would not have been served otherwise; at least, not properly. And Danny, she remembered the day Steve had come and talked to her about the need for a counterpart, and about who'd made his short-list.

_Flashback_

"I've gone through the HPD lineup, Governor."

"HPD? You want a police officer, not military?"

"Look, nobody knows better than me that I don't know anything about being a cop," Steve explained. "I know you've given me means and immunity, but I need someone who can keep HPD on our side."

She leaned forward, understanding the look in his eyes. "And you think you've found that someone?"

Steve nodded eagerly, thrusting a piece of paper at her. She took it and looked down at page 1 of an HPD officer file. "Detective Daniel Williams," she read, and looked at the photo closely. "Why him, Steve?"

Holding up his hand to tick off his points on his fingers, Steve replied, "One, he's HPD. Two, he's only been in Hawaii for six months, and three, the only reason he came to Hawaii was because his ex-wife and her new husband brought his daughter here, and he wanted to be close to her."

Pat looked up at him. "You want someone that new to the islands?"

He nodded. "Someone who isn't likely to have previous ties to anyone here," he confirmed. "I've been gone long enough that I have none, and I don't want a partner who could be dirty just because he does."

She nodded slowly, placing the paper down on the desk in front of him. "Did you know he was assigned your father's case?"

Steve's eyes widened.

"He was the first of HPD to arrive. He's the one who found your father."

Swallowing hard, Steve stared down at the color photo of the man with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. "Then either way, I'll want to talk to him," Steve replied, then looked up at her. "So I can hand-pick my team."

"Yes, and if Detective Williams is who you want to start, I can make a phone call that'll make it happen."

"No," Steve said, a little too quickly as his eyes were drawn back to the photograph. "I think I need to meet him, get a feel for him."

"A feel for him?" she asked, then nodded. "All right, Steve."

_End of flashback_

The group assembled down on the front lawn had moved into the living room. She could hear their voices, but only caught little snatches of the conversation here and there. Jenna's quiet voice sounded desperate and when Steve roared, "_What_?" - well, Pat found herself flinching. Obviously he'd just been told either that she was still alive or that he'd been a pawn in a complex and deadly game.

The pounding of feet came up the steps and Pat braced herself, but forced her face and body to appear calm. The door to the bedroom she'd been resting in flew open and Steve McGarrett filled the frame. They stared at one another for long moments, Steve looking like the hind end of a mule. And really, Pat wasn't surprised. She'd heard from Jenna that Steve had suffered a full-blown migraine shortly after being put in his cell, and had been given a good dose of some triptan drug by the prison infirmary.

Steve's chest was heaving, and from the look on his face, Pat figured she was either _really_ going to be killed very, very soon, or he was simply shell-shocked. "Steve," she said, rising to her feet. Whatever it was he was going to do, she realized, she wanted it just done. Enough was enough with the whole thing already.

"I've got the short version," Steve said. "But I want the truth from you," he finished, advancing upon her.

Pat was proud of the fact that she didn't flinch in the face of the man who just by standing around tended to scare the shit out of people. "I'll tell you everything you want to know," she said, struggling to keep her voice from wavering. She tensed as he took one last step that brought them almost toe-to-toe. She was vaguely aware that the rest of Five-O and Duke were gathered at the door, some inside and some outside of it.

"I was just a pawn in a _game_?" he seethed, and a glance downward told her his fists were clenching and unclenching at an alarming rate. "You _used_ me?"

She folded her arms over her chest protectively. He'd be able to kill her before she could blink, but she had to believe he wasn't going to...still, the arms somehow made her feel safer. "Steve, it's true that Five-O was a means to an end." When he opened his mouth to speak, she held up a hand. "But it was as much a means to _your_ end as it was to mine or the CIA's."

"To get Hesse," Steve concluded, his voice icy. "And Wo Fat."

She nodded once. "I gave you something you wanted...something you _needed_...and in return we've got Fat boxed into a corner he can't escape from."

Steve backed away, turning in a complete circle as he ran a hand down the stubble on his cheeks and chin. He stopped facing the door and looked up. Pat watched as his eyes connected with Danny's, and she would _swear_ they were having some sort of complete, silent conversation in the minute that followed. Finally Steve turned back to face her.

"I don't know if I can ever trust you again," he said, but she saw from his body language that he wasn't ready to kill her anymore, at least.

"I don't expect you to," she replied. "But if we're going to nail that bastard, he has to believe I'm dead and you're in jail. The prison's cooperating, Steve, and I think your team is prepared to go the extra mile to see this thing through." She looked directly into his eyes. "The question is whether you are, too."

Pat watched him, fully believing she could somehow see the wheels in his mind spinning. She was surprised when Danny approached and stood arm-touching-arm next to him. Then Chin came to his other side, Kono next to him. And finally Jenna, who wound up standing to Danny's right. It was Jenna who spoke next, chewing on her lower lip as she looked around Danny at Steve's face.

"I don't know if you can ever forgive me either, Commander McGarrett," she said quietly. "But I'm quitting the CIA because I want to be on _your_ team."

His head whipped right to meet her gaze, and did Pat just see the faintest hint of a smile?

"All right," Steve said, and his gaze shifted to Danny's face. That silent conversation seemed to continue right before Pat's eyes and then Steve looked back to her. "All right, I'm not saying I'm okay with what you did," he continued, nodding first at Pat and then at Jenna, "but I want Wo Fat as much as you seem to, so I'm willing to go along with this until we have him."

She couldn't help the sigh of relief, nor the sagging of her shoulders as her muscles finally unwound at his words. Pat felt dizzy for a moment, and was surprised when it was Steve who moved forward to steady her with his hands on her upper arms.

"You kept my team safe," Steve said, his face only inches from hers as he gently lowered her to sit on the edge of the bed. "You kept Danny's family safe." He backed away until he was right in the middle of that team again. "That's all that matters."

She smiled tiredly and nodded, then let her eyes travel along the line of them.

Kono Kalakaua, the bright, beautiful rookie whose loyalty was so unquestionable that her first words upon seeing Pat in the back of Jenna's car were, "If you don't have a damn good explanation for this, they'll never find your body."

Chin-Ho Kelly, the fiercely loyal and somewhat zen-like presence on the team who'd cared about Steve's father, who'd loved his family so much he'd taken the fall, and the subsequent disgrace, for what his uncle had done. Smart enough to figure out the right thing to do in the heat of everything falling apart around him.

Steve McGarrett, the man with a vendetta and all the passion of a man on a mission. The man who apparently needed his partner as much as his partner needed him, in ways that he himself probably didn't fully understand yet. The man who was the head of her elite task force, who'd partly been used and partly helped, but for the sake of the goal was willing to put differences aside long enough to get the job done.

Danny Williams, and she couldn't help but smile as he looked up at Steve again. The loud-mouth Jersey boy, Duke had called him six months earlier, but someone without whom Steve would be as lost as he would without Steve. They complimented each other perfectly, Pat thought, and were exactly the thing the other one needed even if neither could explain it.

In fact, each and every member of this task force fit together like five pieces of a puzzle that had been scattered to the four winds and had only just, by pure luck and chance, come together again. Jenna was the office help they needed, the one to research, the one to put two and two together and the one to weigh in when her own particular type of knowledge was required.

Pat felt the emotion well up within her, and didn't know if it was simply because her chest was aching, because she was exhausted, because she'd narrowly avoided death, or because they were so close to their goal. But whatever the reason, she couldn't just let these people stand here before her without saying something. And the Governor of Hawaii, though right now that status was questionable since she was supposed to be dead, was good at giving impromptu speeches to a crowd. Especially when she knew the subject matter so very well.

"I want to thank all of you," she said, and then added, "including you, Duke."

The officer smiled and came to stand behind Danny and Jenna.

"I know right now you're all a little wary of me," Pat continued, mapping out in her mind all the things she wanted to make sure to convey to the family standing before her. "I know some of you feel like you've been used or violated in the worst way. I know some of you are frightened for yourselves and the ones you love."

She noted Danny's fingers twitch at that.

"And I know that right now some of you may be doubting Jenna's loyalty given her part in the whole thing, and that you were lied to by both me and Jenna."

Steve looked down and to his right to where Jenna stood with eyes on the floor.

"But you must understand that the work you do in Hawaii is necessary. That in practice it's not just been about getting Wo Fat." Pat looked Kono in the eye. "You've already made Hawaii a safer place for its citizens. You've brought families together and brought criminals to justice. You've stopped boatloads of drugs from hitting our streets and protected dignitaries who simply want to enjoy the natural beauty we're surrounded by every day."

Her eyes moved across the row of people to Jenna.

"When the CIA director and I first began talking about what was happening, it was because they were after Wo Fat as an international criminal. They were working in conjunction with five other countries, including China, South Korea and Singapore. The director knew Wo Fat had come to Hawaii to set up shop, and wouldn't be leaving anytime soon, which put everything into _my_ territory."

Her eyes next moved to Steve, who seemed to be trying to drill into her skull with the look he was giving her.

"It was _me_ who insisted I be given a task force that _I_ commanded, who would be respective of Hawaii and her residents, who wouldn't just want to barge in and take Wo Fat with disregard for its people. I also knew that _you,_" she said pointedly to Steve, "had an axe to grind and that you'd stop at nothing to see these men brought to justice."

Was that a flicker of acceptance she'd just seen in McGarrett's eyes? Her gaze now traveled to Chin.

"I recruited Steve because I _knew_ he was the right man to lead this. He recruited _you_ because he knew you were the team members he needed to make it work." Her eyes darted back to Steve's. "I trusted that about you," she said, her voice softer. "And I trusted that in the end, if this whole thing really did work out, you would somehow understand _why_."

Danny looked up at Steve again, the corner of his mouth quirking into the ghost of a smile.

"Just as you trusted Detective Williams when he was nothing more than a name and photo on a printout to you," Pat said, knowing that if nothing else, this would get through to Steve, "I trusted _you_. With my _life_."

She saw the recognition in Steve's eyes as he looked down at Danny's upturned face once more. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to see if Steve would accept it or refuse to. Pat couldn't take the tension anymore and finally looked away, rubbing at her bruised chest again and wishing she had a good dose of something to take the edge off the pain.

"Governor."

She jumped a bit as Steve took a step forward. Was it just wishful thinking on her part, or did Steve's countenance seem softer than it had a handful of seconds ago?

"Yes?"

"My team and I are still with you one hundred percent," Steve advised, standing straight and clasping his hands behind his back. "But if you want this to keep going, if you want us in on stopping Wo Fat and continuing even beyond that, when he's either dead or behind bars, you have to promise me one thing."

She met his steely gaze and set her jaw. She would agree to _anything_ at this point, and he probably knew it. "Name it," she said confidently.

"You will never..._ever_...do anything like this again," Steve said, his voice allowing for no argument. "Five-O will know _every_ move, _every_ step, _every_ plan." He paced to the right, and then back to the left again before stopping before her. "We will be in on absolutely everything, with no more secrets and no more lies. And when this is all over," he said, waving his hand in the air in a way that amusingly reminded Pat of his partner. "When this is all over, and we have Wo Fat where he should be, Five-O will continue. Our ohana will _not_ be broken apart."

In the five seconds he held her gaze steady, a smile crept over her face. Because she knew that woven in Steve's words and written on his posture, he was telling her everything was going to be okay. She rose and stuck her hand out. "You, Commander McGarrett, have yourself a deal."

He looked so serious, but she could see his eyes twinkling and felt the warmth from them and from his hand as he clasped hers and shook it firmly. He made to turn back toward his team, but stopped and pivoted to face her again. Pat was aware that the rest of them had quietly filed out of the bedroom, and that Duke had closed the door nearly all the way. Her eyes never left Steve's.

"Thank you," Steve said. She ducked her head in acknowledgment. "But I meant what I said. Don't ever fuck with me, or any of my team, ever again."

"You have my word, Steve. And I know you won't trust me for a long, long time. But I can live with that as long as Five-O is keeping my state _safe_."

"On that," Steve said, squaring his jaw, "you have _my_ word."

She watched as he turned and left the room. Pat felt the weariness of the day's and night's events catch up with her and melted into the mattress. Now she could sleep. Because now Steve, Danny, Chin, Kono and Jenna would always be there. They'd have her back, and she'd have theirs. And the people of Hawaii would be the better for it.

As, Pat suspected, would many, many others the world 'round.

_~ROLL CREDITS~_

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><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: I'd like to thank everyone who left reviews, and all of you who've stuck with me during this, my first _H50_ fic. I must admit, I am quite addicted to these characters after this rather character-study-ish story, and hope you enjoyed reading it (and were able to roll with my way of setting things right after the Season 1 finale). What started out as a one-shot truly became a labor of love. So thank you for coming along for the ride!


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